"For its third building in 35 years, the Whitney Museum chose a 100 x 125 foot site in the art gallery district of mid-town Madison Avenue where, among an environment of tall apartment buildings, a new, distinctive, and significant home was to be located. The housing of changing exhibitions rather than a permanent collection has determined the new museum's philosophy, planning, and details. Three of its floors have large, open gallery spaces with suspended precast concrete open grid ceilings, detailied to receive movable wall panels and flexible lighting that can be rearranged for each new show. Outside, the cube-like building is sheathed with granite."

from Sylvia Hart Wright. Sourcebook of Contemporary North American Architecture: From Postwar to Postmodern. p15-16.

The Creator's Words

"What should a museum look like, a museum in Manhattan? Surely it should work, it should fulfill its requirements, but what is its relationship to the New York landscape? What does it express, what is its architectural message?

"It is easier to say first what it should not look like. It should not look like a business or office building, nor should it look like a place of light entertainment. Its form and its material should have identity and weight in the neighborhood of 50-story skyscrapers, of mile long bridges, in the midst of the dynamic jungle of our colorful city. It should be an independent and self- relying unit, exposed to history, and at the same time it should transform the vitality of the street into the sincerity and profundity of art."